If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
(New York) – Government security branches in Raqqa city hold documents and potential physical evidence indicating that detainees were arbitraril...
We have not repented of the torture that we facilitated after 1993 and implemented after 2001. Because we have not repented, we are all the more at risk of doing the exact same thing under new conditions or a new president.
Right now, the Jewish community is finishing up its annual marking of days, as each night we count the Omer, the 49 days between the second night of Passover and the beginning of Shavuot. Immediately after, we'll mark another set of days, one with only despair and no celebration.
When Dick Cheney appears before Congress to answer questions about his actions that caused the death and maiming of hundreds of thousands of people, some from incompetence, some as a result of outright lying- -- then he can come talk to us about Hillary Clinton testifying again.
We need enemies. Homeland Security is psychological. Thus the guilt or innocence of the Gitmo prisoners and all our other detainees is irrelevant.
"I'm not a philosopher who can say whether these drone strikes are definitely wrong. But there's still a moral issue at stake: For while there are casualties and collateral damage in every war, even the loss of one life will mark the soul of the American pilot."
The hunger strikers have succeeded in pushing Guantanamo out of the netherworld of non-news and onto front pages, into presidential news conferences, and to the top of the TV newscasts. But what exactly do those prisoners, many now being force-fed, want to highlight?
Condemning people to pain and illness while they wait for a trial isn't justice, it is cruelty. And it must stop.
In the figures of completely normal American college students turned terrorists and of torture done at the hands of American soldiers, we are forced to come face-to-face with our own capacity for destruction -- a capacity that is playing itself out in our economy, in our foreign policy and in our very chances for a future on this planet.
I had a chance to meet with some of the folks who have served as mediators to Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and I am deeply disturbed by what I learned.
The U.S. Department of Justice now has sufficient information to warrant a criminal investigation of those who commissioned and approved policies that resulted in torture and illegal treatment of detainees. There is indeed a moral imperative to get to the bottom of this dark chapter in American history.
The question is not whether to hunt terrorists. The question is: how many innocent lives are we willing to destroy in bringing these criminals to justice?
If there has to be a library on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, let it be named after the man who actually ran the country, and not the man who simply nodded his head in affirmation. Let's call it the "Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney Presidential Library."
It is with great sadness that I reflect on what is a significant anniversary for all involved in the struggle to advance human rights: this year's 25th anniversary of the United States signing of the UN Convention Against Torture.
Reagan and Clarke share their reactions in personally terrorizing situations -- Ron after his father was shot, Torie at the Pentagon on 9/11 -- and how public officials should respond to violence. Good: "stay calm and carry on" like Deval. Bad: overreact w/ Iraq & torture. Ugly: vote for gun deaths.
It's not just Bush and Cheney who violated international law; now it's Obama, too. The report is blistering about the cover-up. The end result is a society in moral disarray.
Most Popular Torture Stories
